No one did backflips when a federal judge ruled in January that the Forest Service’s environmental analysis of a grazing allotment on Arizona’s Tonto National Forest was inadequate. After all, it was a procedural victory and might not protect even one blade of grass. But for Michael Seidman, the decision was a hard-earned victory. It […]
Zookeeper helps a battered range
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Dear friends
They have our thanks Boise, Idaho, resident Kay Hummel sent us a note one night because she was too excited to sleep. She said she and close to 200 people had just attended a tribute to three of Idaho’s environmental heroes, and the feelings generated at the event Feb. 24 were still warm. Those honored […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
High Country Snooze
HCS publisher heaves fowl Joey Winterbottom, an intern who arrived last week, successfully administered the Heimlich maneuver to HCS publisher Ed Motown during a brown-bag staff meeting yesterday. Motown had noticed the meeting had gone two minutes over the designated hour and was trying to sigh conclusively to indicate it was over – a technique […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Heard around the West
Being a senator is a rough job. It takes a good deal of toughing it out, sucking it up, upper-lip stiffening and other-cheek turning. Take Mark Hatfield, the Republican senator from Oregon who recently lobbied to extend the “logging-without-laws” salvage rider: “Seeing the photos (of fallen ancient forest trees) chills my blood,” he said on […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Goodbye, Deadwood
When I arrived in 1976, Deadwood, S.D., was 100 years old and still a living gold camp. I was 22, married and fresh out of suburban Minneapolis. Deadwood felt like home from the moment I set foot here. It wasn’t an easy place to live. You weren’t considered a local until you made it through […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Deadwood pays dearly for gambling riches
Note: This article accompanies another feature story, “Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot.” DEADWOOD, S. D. – Before state residents legalized gambling here in 1989, most people in this town of 1,800 or so lived life in the slow lane. They’d see each other for coffee at Marie’s Cafe or later in the day at […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Navajos say no – then maybe – to casinos
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot.” WINDOW ROCK, N.M. “Two Novembers ago, the Navajo Nation held its first referendum to decide if the tribal government could legalize casinos on Navajo lands. It appeared on the ballot either as cards or a second set of […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
I made $52,000 in 1994 and never bought a pair of shoes that whole year
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot.” “Tiffany” – she asked us not to use her real name – is a 48-year-old real estate agent from Phoenix. She gambled uncontrollably for two and half years and nearly ruined her marriage before controlling her compulsion. Now, […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
The nuts and bolts of Western gambling
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot.” Americans spend more money on games of chance than movies, concerts and theaters combined. In 1994, Americans lost $40 billion of the $482 billion they wagered. Since state-sponsored lotteries and video gambling started the current gambling craze in […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Life is a game, but bingo is serious
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot.” Gambling has long been a part of most Native American cultures. Traditional handgames, involving song and trickery, are still played in community halls away from the casinos. But modern Indian gaming owes its roots to bingo played in […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
FORT McDOWELL, Ariz. – It started as a traditional cowboy and Indian battle – one the Indians were supposed to lose. At 6:00 on a May morning in 1992, a team of FBI agents accompanied by eight Mayflower moving vans invaded the Fort McDowell Reservation. Armed agents broke into the tribal bingo hall and began […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
The Native Home of Hope: Community, Ecology and the West
Missoula Mayor Daniel Kemmis, author Terry Tempest Williams and other Westerners will speak at the Wallace Stegner Center Symposium, called The Native Home of Hope: Community, Ecology and the West. The symposium, scheduled for April 12-13 at the University Park Hotel in Salt Lake City, will explore themes of cooperation and ecosystem management in the […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Small Farming in Oregon
The Oregon State University Extension Service will host a conference for owners of small farms March 29-30 at Linfield College in McMinnville. Small Farming in Oregon will offer more than 40 workshops on subjects ranging from water rights to mushroom and ginseng production. Registration is $25 for one day and $40 for both days. Contact […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Environmental heroes
Not surprisingly, “environmental zeroes’ eclipsed “environmental heroes’ in the first session of the 104th Congress, according to the scorecard released last month by the League of Conservation Voters. The group’s 26th annual report rates lawmakers on key environmental votes, such as legislation to close national parks and to sell public lands. Contact the League of […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Arid art
Arid Art An Englishman from Cornwall in the west of England, Tony Foster is fascinated by the American West’s wilderness of eroded rocks and deserts, including Death Valley in California and the slickrock onion domes of Utah’s canyonlands. An exhibit of his latest work, Arid Lands, Watercolor Diaries of Journeys across Deserts, can be seen […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Naked and marvelous
NAKED AND MARVELOUS The Colorado Plateau and its Drainage, a topographic map by Kenneth Perry, is the closest most of us will ever come to seeing the West from heaven. Perry combines USGS data with sophisticated Macintosh graphics to create maps that are both useful and colorful. While Raven Graphics maps are handsome and accurate, […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Just a little advice
JUST A LITTLE ADVICE A county commissioner in Colorado thinks he can help newcomers adjust to the rural parts of Larimer County. John Clarke has written a seven-page primer, The Code of the West, which includes some useful tips. About utilities: even cellular phones won’t work in all areas; Mother Nature: expansive soils can buckle […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
They did it themselves
They did it themselves Some 200 federal employees and outside experts have developed a sweeping management plan for public lands in the six states of the Columbia River Basin. And it didn’t cost taxpayers a dime. It was done under the auspices of the nonprofit AFSEEE, the Association of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Tailings pile makes waves
Tailings pile makes waves Uranium mine tailings piled on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab, Utah, will stay put if the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and Atlas Minerals Co. get their way. In a draft environmental impact statement released in January, the federal agency says reclaiming the tailings mountain on site – as the […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Desert rendezvous
DESERT RENDEZVOUS Restoring riparian zones and passing a ballot initiative are two topics participants will talk about at the 18th annual High Desert Conference April 25-28. Sponsors of A Desert Wildlands Revival: Water, Wildlife and Wilderness in The High Desert include the Oregon Natural Desert Association, Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club and Committee for […]